Coffee & Grunge to Gentrify ‘Soma’

A hotel fit for a spotted pig.

Is south of Macy’s (Soma?) the next Seattle? That’s where the East Coast’s first Ace Hotel is scheduled to open in 2009. Seattle’s hipster hostelry has taken over the landmarked 1904 Breslin Hotel on 29th Street and Broadway. It will be redesigned by the architects that de-Starcked the Royalton, Roman and Williams, and turned into something that should make one of the last somewhat-desolate parts of Manhattan groovy. Ace is bringing in Rudy’s Barber Shop (like the one in the downtown L.A. Standard) and an outlet of the Portland coffee shop Stumptown. It’s close to a deal with Ken Friedman, the co-proprietor of the Spotted Pig, and the upcoming Tenth Avenue seafood spot, the John Dory, too. “Ace is better than other places rock bands and starving designers stay in,” says Friedman. Plus, “I like to go into historic buildings, maybe because I’m old.”